Behind Ruffles’ Bumper Car Battle with F1 Driver Checo Pérez

To announce its partnership with F1 driver Sergio ‘Checo’ Pérez, Pepsico’s snack brand Ruffles teamed up with creative agency Slap Global and production company Primo Content to create ‘Choca a Checo’ - a vibrant, cinematic spot where a team of bumper car drivers attempt to hit (‘chocar’ in Spanish) the expert racer.

Set among the bright, colourful lights of a fairground-meets-’Fight Club’ arena, Checo outwits and outmanoeuvres his charismatic opponents with spectacular evasive moves and frightening speed - at least until the very last second. Set to a Tarantino-esque soundtrack - ‘New Year’s Eve’ by Dengue Fever - the spot has comedic, comic-strip charm and generates a palpable sense of velocity and intensity using low camera angles, custom-built bumper cars and some exhilarating stunt driving.

Speaking to LBB’s Ben Conway, Primo Content’s director, Diego Nuñez Irigoyen and Slap Global’s co-founder and CCO, Maxi Itzkoff discuss the challenges and childish excitement that this project brought. As well as the unexpected issue of constructing high-speed bumper cars, Diego talks about combining the energy of ‘Fast & Furious’ and ‘Speed Racer’ with the stylised combat of ‘Kill Bill’, and the intricate details in lighting, sound design and more that went into producing the atmosphere of an underground racing event in a 1980s fairground.

LBB> What was the initial creative spark behind this campaign? And strategically, how does F1 intersect with the Ruffles brand? 

Maxi> The Ruffles marketing team at Pepsico is so nice and professional - the whole process was amazing. As soon as they closed the deal with Checo, they called us and gave us the freedom to come up with an unexpected idea. We presented four and they selected and produced three.

Most sports celebrities don’t have very good acting skills, which makes their ads look forced and fake. So we said, ‘let’s think of an idea in which Checo could be himself and have fun’. We wanted him to enjoy the shoot and be the real Checo. So we came up with this idea of making Checo feel like a kid again.

Ruffles has had many activations within sports, including the NFL, NBA, and Champions League over the past few years. Now the brand wants to capitalise on the positive momentum of F1, one of the most followed sports by younger generations. Checo Pérez, is the only Mexican and Latin American racer within F1, so he was the perfect partner for Ruffles Mexico.

LBB> Diego, what was your initial reaction to the script? What visuals or ideas immediately sprang to mind?

Diego> I was thrilled when I read the script. It seemed amazing, but at the same time hard to pull off. I've known and worked with Maxi and several of the creatives at Slap Global for many years. They always come up with these bold ideas. Working for them is always very exciting, but it’s also a challenge. The bar is set pretty high when these folks are around.

Ideas, at first, were not so visual. I had more of a specific tone in mind. I wanted to approach the script as a kind of playful ‘Fast & Furious’ and I wanted some of the thrill of those chase scenes in ‘The Italian Job’. I wanted it to be about cars - about speed - but it was mostly about having fun. I knew I wanted to establish the challenge between the competitors with a kind of ‘Kill Bill’ fight sequence vibe too. These were the kind of references in my mind. The challenge was: how do you shoot ‘Fast & Furious’-style with bumper cars that are extremely slow and unmaneuverable? How do we make this fun and exciting to watch? 

LBB> The spot takes place in a kind of fairground – but it feels like a futuristic gladiator arena. How did you create this atmosphere?

Diego> I think the visual atmosphere of the spot is defined by a mixture of influences. On the one hand, we built the race track and the fair around it, inspired by some pictures of vintage race tracks. We knew we wanted as many practical lights as we could on set, and we knew we wanted neon. So we searched for inspiration through pictures of bumper cars and fairgrounds from the 1980s. We added a lot of props and light sources from different time periods too. This combination of an old-style fair, with some very modern and techy elements like Checo’s F1 helmet, helped to create this kind of ‘futuristic arena’ look. Since we built everything from scratch we were able to be very specific about the general look and set design. 

At some point, we realised it was impossible to shoot this with real bumper cars! We needed bumper cars that could go fast and perform cool manoeuvres. That meant we had to build special, custom-made vehicles. However, this led to us realising that all the available tracks were useless, they were way too small for the speed we could now reach. In the end, we rented a huge underground parking lot and built the set. This allowed us to create this kind of timeless fairground that mixed elements from different time periods. The production designer, Joaquín de la Riva and his team did an amazing job. I cannot thank them enough for the countless, sleepless nights they spent building the set. 

LBB> As well as the in-camera effects and lighting on set, the colour grade and sound design are clearly very important to you in creating the intensity and vibrancy of this film. How did you work with the post-production teams to achieve this neon, arena-like atmosphere?

Diego> If you need to communicate speed, adrenaline and vertigo, sound design is essential. I’m a bit of a purist and I tend to gather realistic elements to use in my work, but real bumper car sounds didn’t make much sense since they don’t really have a high-speed vibe and, of course, there are no high-speed bumper cars. So there was a lot of back and forth on how the cars should sound. We could have explored and created a more realistic sound for those cars moving at high speed, but this wasn’t a 90-minute movie, so we needed to establish adrenaline in just a few seconds. We ended up mixing a lot of different engines and sound effects. This may sound a bit ridiculous, but in the end, I think it adds a slight touch of comedy and sets up the mood immediately. 

Regarding colour grading, together with our DoP, Leandro Ferrao, we had very specific ideas in mind for the look. We shot very close to the final look we wanted to achieve. Colour artist Xavi Santoalaya is a very close collaborator too, who will always bring in something new, cool, grainy, and unexpected. 

LBB> The close-ups on the drivers’ faces and the framing of the shots evoke a comic strip or anime feel. Is that something you intentionally tried to create?

Diego> The funny thing here is that I only realised this when all the pieces came together - in the editing! Especially while watching the footage against that amazing song by Dengue Fever, which we always knew we wanted for the spot.

One thing that was very clear in my mind is that I wanted to avoid the narrative becoming too cold and too focused on cars or machines. Car stunts were obviously essential, but if we wanted to achieve something playful and fun, we needed close-ups, we needed faces, we needed characters. I always knew these faces and characters would bring an element of humour and irony. I wanted the music to also help in this sense - and that’s how we came across the track by Dengue Fever. But again, it was only back in the editing room that I realised this combination had this kind of ‘anime’ vibe. I guess there are always subconscious elements that inform your work. As a kid, I was a huge fan of ‘Speed Racer,’ ‘Captain Tsuba,’ and ‘Wacky Races.’ Probably some of that was floating in my mind, though not in a conscious way. 

LBB> The film has so many fast-moving components and bright colours to capture. What was your equipment set up like? 

Diego> We shot on Sony Venice for the high ISO and used the FF Cooke Anamorphic Lenses. We used a Scorpio Head [a stabilised digital remote camera head] with a [FlowCine] Black Arm attached to track vehicles. A lot of shake on the Scorpio to enhance speed sensation. We rigged the [Sony Venice] Rialto camera to the helmet to shoot POVs, which were essential to the narrative. And then lots and lots of different grips. 

LBB> How did you coordinate the action sequences between the cars? Was it a challenge to be precise with the bumper cars? 

Diego> It was extremely challenging. These were not real bumper cars, so they went really fast and crashing them always involved an element of risk. It took a lot of coordination and precision to shoot those sequences. Leandro Ferrao came with a lot of experience in shooting cars, so he really helped me figure out how to block and shoot the sequences. We had a coordinator and four great precision drivers that took care of the major stunts. 

A lot of the work had to be done with meticulous storyboarding, rehearsing and trying out what our cars could and could not perform. It was all about getting to shooting day with a very precise idea of what we exactly needed from each shot. 

LBB> The sequence where Checo is reversing and spins out to escape is so exciting and intense. How did you capture these shots and put this sequence together?

Diego> The sequence was very hard to accomplish. Again, we had a very detailed storyboard, so we knew exactly what we needed from each shot. Because of the technical limitations of the custom-made cars, the sequence couldn't be performed in its entirety. So we broke it up into a couple of shots, knowing exactly what we needed from each one. We also used some minor VFX enhancements. 

LBB> How was Checo to direct and work with? Was he just as talented in a bumper car as in his F1 car?

Diego> Haha! Checo was great, really fun and easygoing! Being the world-class star he is, his availability was limited, so we only had him for a couple of hours. We basically shot the beginning of the spot and all his driving close-ups. Car stunts were performed by our team of drivers. Incidentally, he also ended up giving great recommendations for where to dine in Guadalajara (his native town, where we shot this)!

LBB> Throughout the production process, what gave you the most satisfaction? And equally, what provided you with the hardest challenge – and how did you overcome it?

Diego> Production was fun but very stressful. Timing was tight and we had to build everything from scratch. Almost every aspect was a huge challenge but probably the hardest two were building the giant race track, surrounded by a fair, and designing the bumper cars that could perform the manoeuvres we needed. I need to thank production designer Joaquín and the EPs at Primo, Jaime Videal and Omar Uscanga, who were not only very supportive but meticulous in every detail. They helped and guided us through the nightmare of  technical challenges and setbacks we faced 

Maxi> To produce the cars and the set in three weeks was the most stressful experience. This was a three-day shoot and literally, we were on set the first day and the cars weren’t ready for action. I’m agnostic, but I remember praying for the first time in my life.   

Diego> It was stressful but I must admit, on some days, for some hours, I felt like a little kid building his own, gigantic, race track and playing around with bumper cars!